


Have you seen?

by PercyByssheShelley



Category: Finding Carter (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 07:40:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2539787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PercyByssheShelley/pseuds/PercyByssheShelley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-series. Carter and Max go to a party out of town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Have you seen?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mierke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mierke/gifts).



“Are you sure we’re invited to this party?” Carter asked as Max eased his beater into a barely big enough space between a Lexus and a late model BMW.

“Of course. Yes.” Max pulled on the handbrake, jiggling it for a second to get it to catch. “Almost certainly definitely.”

“Max,” she said. “If we’ve driven for hours to get turned away at the door I’m going to-”

“It’s fine, ok? You know Bobby, from the basketball team at the community center? He’s got a friend from juvie, and he’s got a, y’know, _connection_ and that guy’s got a friend who’s hosting the whole thing. He says it’s basically open house, she doesn’t even care.”

‘She’ turned out to be a startlingly beautiful girl about their own age, who opened the door with a bowl of jello shots in one hand. The other hand was planted on her hip, her back arched to show off her purple bodysuit , and the fan of iridescent purple and green feathers at her back.

Whoever she was hoping to find at the door it obviously wasn’t them, because she dropped out of the pose immediately.

“Nice, you’re a peacock,” Carter said, flashing her best ‘please don’t kick us out’ smile.

The girl brightened immediately. “Oh my god you’re my new best friend. Everyone else guessed ‘Vegas showgirl’.” She held out the bowl for them.

“Ugh,” Carter said, even though that would have been her second guess.

“You know, Bird, peacocks are the male of the species,” a voice said behind them. Carter turned to see a girl standing on the path in a black robe and blue scarf, her hand on the shoulder of a much younger boy. “The females are brown.”

“Thanks Taylor,” Bird said blandly. “I’ll keep that in mind next year.”

“Trick or treat,” the boy said. He sounded distinctly bored with proceedings. He looked to be about eleven, and Carter remembered bickering with her mother at that age, too old to be excited about trick or treating but too young for the parties. They’d ended up splitting the difference and spent a couple of Halloweens on the couch, having horror movie marathons in their pyjamas.

“I don’t actually have any candy,” Bird said.

“I’ve gotcha buddy,” Max pulled his plastic gun out of his belt. He spun it once around his finger, then fired a marshmallow at the kid’s forehead.

“Cool! Can I try that?”

“Grant, no-” Taylor tried, but the two of them had already disappeared deeper into the yard. 

 “Hey,” Carter said, reaching out to tweak the edge of Taylor’s robe. “We’re twins.”

Carter always defaulted to being a witch on Halloween. Sure, being a Sexy Random Noun had its benefits, but Carter was a strategist at heart. A cloak meant she always had somewhere to hide things if the cops took an interest in the party, and if she ended up spending the night under a pool table or in someone’s bathtub, it could become a blanket or a pillow in a pinch.

Taylor, though, looked horrified by the comparison. Carter kept smiling, pushing down a flash of embarrassment mixed with anger at her snobbery. Of course this girl, in her Ravenclaw scarf and robe, heavy velvet and fine stitching screaming of official (aka expensive) merchandise, didn’t want to be compared to a girl in green facepaint and a cloak from the sale rack at Kmart.

“I’d better go get Grant,” Taylor said awkwardly. “Hey, will you guys take these?” She pushed a pamphlet into Carter’s hands, and then took off down the path.

Carter unfolded the pamphlet, to see one of those creepy-looking digitally aged missing person ads. “She’s looking for her sister,” she said, feeling bad.

“She’s looking to sell more of her father’s books,” Bird said. “You coming in?”

…

Carter stumbled out of bed late the next afternoon, and found her mother already up and making lunch.

“You have fun?” Laurie asked.

“Not too much, I promise,” Carter said. Her bag was sitting on the counter, and she rifled through it looking for the pamphlet. She still felt bad about it- she had so little family herself, she couldn’t imagine losing someone like that. The library would still be open for another few hours, maybe she could check out that book. But she couldn’t find it. “Hey mom, did I leave a piece of paper out last night? It was a missing persons thingo.”

“I didn’t see anything like that,” Laurie said. “You know I wouldn’t touch your stuff.”

 Oh well. Maybe she could find it anyway. It had been called Looking for Lydia, right?  “Ok, I’m going to bounce. Love you.”

“Love you more.”

“Not possible.”

“Yes, possible.”


End file.
